REPORT: WAIT LISTS FOR VETERAN HEALTH CARE 50% LONGER THIS YEAR WITH A HUGE BUDGET SHORTFALL

This report is shocking! The wait times are ridiculous but the budget shortfall is what’s really nuts! With the report released on the *VA hospital that was missing $54 million, it’s really no wonder that the VA is in debt BIGTIME:

*At one VA hospital in the Bronx it appears that more than $54 million in charges were run up on the government equivalent of credit cards in a two year period and the details look more than suspicious.

Employees in the purchasing department of a VA hospital in the Bronx, N.Y., had used government purchase cards like credit cards at least 2,000 times to buy prosthetic legs and arms for veterans.

Each time they swiped the cards, it was for $24,999. That was precisely one dollar below VA’s charging limit for purchase cards.

The number of veterans seeking health care but ending up on waiting lists of one month or more is 50 percent higher now than it was a year ago when a scandal over false records and long wait times wracked the Department of Veterans Affairs, The New York Times reported.

The VA also faces a budget shortfall of nearly $3 billion, the Times reported in a story posted online ahead of its Sunday editions. The agency is considering furloughs, hiring freezes and other significant moves to reduce the gap, the newspaper reported.

In the last year, the VA has increased capacity by more than 7 million patient visits per year, double what officials originally thought they needed to fix shortcomings, the Times reported. However, the newspaper added, department officials did not anticipate just how much physician workloads and demand from veterans would continue to soar. At some major veterans hospitals, demand was up by one-fifth, the paper report.